%0 Journal Article
%T “You Are Evidently Inferior Even to Beasts.” Zoomorphic Incarnations of Satan in Piotr Skarga’s The Lives of the Saints
%A Cybulska-Bohuszewicz, Ewa
%J Terminus
%V 2019
%R 10.4467/20843844TE.19.018.11192
%N Volume 21, zeszyt 2 (51) 2019
%P 245-268
%K Piotr Skarga, Żywoty świętych, Lives of Saints, miracula, evil, Satan
%@ 2082-0984
%D 2019
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/terminus/article/znac-izescie-i-bestyj-podlejszy-zoomorficzne-inkarnacje-szatana-w-zywotach-swietych-piotra-skargi
%X 
	The paper presents the animal incarnations of Satan in the The Lives of the Saints (Żywoty świętych) by Piotr Skarga. Animal motifs are not independent elements in this work, but only part of larger narrative entireties, so-called miracula, which have not yet been analysed. Scholars (H. Barycz, J. Tazbir) considered them elements that depreciated a monumental work of art. These views have been revised recently. Newer findings (by authors such as A. Kapuścińska, A. Ceccherelli, A. Nowicka- Jeżowa, K. Kiszkowiak) shed a slightly different light on the miraculous plots in The Lives of the Saints. However, even these researchers do not offer detailed analyses of miracula. On the contrary, they publish panoramic, comprehensive studies that usually present such texts in the context of a specific problem (e.g. the influence on the shape of post-Tridentine devotion). In this paper, Cybulska attempts to interpret animal motifs using the findings of the so-called Silesian school of micrology. This method seems appropriate as it involves focusing on detail. Moreover, as Aleksander Nawarecki stated, “The aspect of degradation, or rejection is important.” This is how miracula were perceived for a long time—as elements that diminish the value of The Lives of the Saints. Are miracular motifs, and specifically animal motifs present in them, irrelevant from the perspective of literary studies? This paper is intended to demonstrate that this is not the case. Although scattered in a large text and seemingly of little value to its interpretation, these motifs are in fact carriers of important content. They show how the nature and ontology of evil were understood and how the influence of evil on man was perceived in the epoch in which Lives were written.